By Oguwike Nwachuku
When Ibrahim Idris was appointed Inspector General of Police (IGP) on June 21, 2016, I interrogated his personae and concluded that the police under his watch would fair worse.
I have been vindicated by most of the media articles I have read since Idris retired on January 15, 2018 after 35 years of service and clocking the mandatory 60 years in service.
Several articles describe him as corrupt, devious and reckless, and his era in office as shameful because he was partisan and destroyed professionalism.
I wrote in this column in 2016 that there was nothing wrong with the appointment of Idris as IGP if he was qualified, but “there is everything wrong with a political leadership under (President Muhammadu) Buhari which does not care that all appointees to the offices of IGP, DSS, Chief of Army Staff, NSA, Immigration, Civil Defence, Defence Ministry, Prisons, Customs, Minister of Interior, Chief of Air Staff, all come from the North.”
When Idris was chosen by Buhari, news trended that it was payback time as Idris assisted him so well when he was Commissioner of Police in Kano State during the 2015 elections.
I saw his choice as IGP as patronage that would be at variance with personal and professional competence and capacity and hamper effective policing. That was my first observation.
My second observation stemmed from Idris’s acceptance speech in 2016 that was full of praise-singing for Buhari.
He said in the speech: “I want to show my utmost thanks and appreciation to the President, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the chairman of the Nigeria Police Council, President Muhammad Buhari, GCON, for having the trust and confidence in me and for appointing me to this exalted position ….
“I wish to call on every citizen of this great country to support and cooperate with the police to make Nigeria safer and more united.
“As we are all aware, the security of our communities is the responsibility of all of us; I seek the support of every citizen to give the Nigeria Police Force maximum cooperation to ensure that this country shall continue to be more united and prosperous.
“Once again, I want to thank Mr. President for the confidence and I promise to effectively discharge this onerous responsibility. May Almighty Allah continue to bless this great country and guide the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
I wrote in 2016 that “I have read the maiden speech of Idris to the police officers and men, and compared it with his maiden remarks when (Solomon) Arase introduced him to the media.
“I am not so sure about his independent-mindedness required to police the Nigerian state of today neither am I swayed by his remarks or speech.
“For instance, the praises he lavished on Buhari in his opening and closing speeches over his appointment are nauseating and unnecessary and actually speak volumes.
“They do not convince me that he will take decisions without deferring to his benefactor. I see him forgetting soon the issues he says he wants to deal with as IGP,”
My third observation was the clandestine move by Idris to take all newly promoted Deputy Inspectors General of Police (DIGs) and several Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIGs) out of the system to give him unfettered control of new officers.
Much of that could have been expected from Idris who was promoted ahead of his seniors and contemporaries, but he made it seem leaving any of those senior officers in office would jeopardise his own performance.
He got his wish all the same.
Six DIGs (Dan-Azumi Job Doma, Sotonye Wakama, Ibrahim Mamman Tsafe, Kakwa Christopher Katso, Cynthia Amaju-Onu, and Jubril Olawale Adeniji) and 10 AIGs (Ibrahim Manko; Patrick Dokumor; Balla Nasarawa; Tambari Mohammed; Bala Hassan; Yahaya Ardo; Musa Daura; Baba Adisa Bolanta; Usman Gwary, and Tunde Ogunsakin) were offloaded from service.
The irony is that most of the retired DIGs and AIGs were men and women with better capacity and competence than Idris.
They would have helped Idris succeed if he was not greedy, selfish and with a low mentality on policing. It did not matter to him that most of them were newly promoted and still had a future in the police.
During the week I spoke with a retired senior police officer who lamented the state of the police.
He moaned not because things were exceptionally good in their days (he retired about seven years ago) but because instead of things getting better they get rather worse.
One of the instances he gave caught my attention.
He said the office of the Force Public Relations Office has been completely desecrated that it has now been turned into a mouthpiece for the IGP instead of the police as an institution.
The consequence, he reiterated, is that matters which require the police to critically dissect through consultation and advice, so as to improve, are relegated to the background in preference for matters personal to the head of the police and his family.
He said things got so bad under Idris that no one again remembers the few gains recorded by Solomon Arase who handed over to him in 2016.
I was ruminating over my conversation with the retired police chief, which took place a day before Idris retired, when the announcement was made of the appointment of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Frank Mba, as the new Force Public Relations Officer.
Following Mba’s appointment, goodwill and congratulatory messages flowed ceaselessly on social media, all of which had kind words about him.
Mba was once FPRO under Mohammed Dikko Abubakar as IGP. He acquitted himself well notwithstanding that he was a relatively young officer both in age and rank.
He has the humility, discipline, courage, and intelligence to interface with the public he serves within the police, unlike the man he replaced – Jimoh Moshood – who saw his office as an extension of the office of Idris.
Mba is one of the few officers who drank from the fountain of iconic past police image makers such as Alozie Ogugbuaja, Frank Odita and Tunji Alapini, who used their position to speak for the police and not the IGP.
Moshood operated in a world of his own. And his world was Idris’s.
Idris has forgotten that he once stated that “honestly, by collective leadership, the Nigeria Police is going to be governed by internationally recognised core values of policing everywhere in the world, that is, the issue of integrity, issue of compassion, issues of ensuring that our streets, our neighbourhoods, our communities remain safe.
“We are going to do everything possible to ensure that we provide the best service to this country.”
You be the judge as to whether Idris kept this promise or preferred to deal with the bland speech full of appreciation to his benefactor that eventually did him and his tenure in.
Nigerians are happy that Idris has gone. They do not want to remember his era. Those who say his exit is good riddance to bad rubbish want to say that as many times as they have the opportunity.
Compared to the excitement that heralded the appointment of acting IGP, Mohammed Adamu, and Frank Mba as FPRO, Idris has already been consigned to the dustbin of history even before he starts his retirement.
How sad.
Buhari must also not be too proud of a man he made IGP after by-passing six DIGs and 10 AIGs in anticipation that he would be exceptional, only to still rely heavily on the army for major security challenges in an era of civil rule when the police are supposed to be in charge.
The back seat that has become the police today, which got bad under the watch of Idris, is something Adamu must brace up to redress. Yes, he must do just that.
There is so much to be done in the police.
Crime control and prevention, investigation and interrogation, detention and prosecution, surveillance, as well as other contemporary ways of policing, are still as traditional as they have been and something ought to be done to remediate the situation.
Adamu understands the enormity of work to be done.
When he addressed the media during his unveiling on Tuesday he pledged that “the force will be professional in the discharge of its duties before, during and after the 2019 general elections.
“All political parties and their candidates would be given a level playing field during the polls.”
If the statement issued by Moshood on his former boss and incoming IGP is anything to go by, then Adamu can be trusted to redirect the police back from a derailed leadership train.
He wrote that Adamu “is a versatile and seasoned police officer, a professional per excellence. He attended several Senior Officer Courses on Law Enforcement, Crime Prevention, Control and Management within and outside Nigeria.
“Before his appointment as the acting Inspector General of Police, he was a Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State.
“He was Commissioner of Police in Ekiti and Enugu States and also Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 5 Police Command Headquarters, Benin, Edo State.”
It is heart-warming that Adamu wants to give all the political parties a level playing field to operate.
But more importantly he should follow the advice the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) gave him to “immediately commence the re-engineering of the police to restore professionalism and adherence to rules of engagement in the force” and “immediately set up the process of re-orientating and insulating the force from partisan politics, while subjecting it to the tenets of democracy and the rule of law.”
The statement signed by PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, is instructive to both Adamu and the public.
He added: “The former IGP must be held accountable for all the atrocities he committed while in office.
“Ibrahim Idris will be remembered as the only IGP in our political history who surrendered the responsibilities of his exalted office to the whims and caprices of politicians who share courtesies with the Buhari Presidency.
“Idris will also be remembered as that police officer who had a penchant for framing innocent Nigerians with ridiculous allegations. Throughout his inglorious tenure, he functioned as the commander of the militant wing of the APC, just to retain his office and remain in power.
“[Adamu] should avoid the pitfalls of the last IGP, who has gone down in history as the most corrupt, devious and reckless police officer to hold the post of the IGP in Nigeria.
“[He] should remove all templates of election rigging contained in the hand-over note that will be presented to him by Idris.
“[He] must also urgently take steps to address the bastardisation of promotion in the police under the last IGP, where officers due for promotion were denied and only those endorsed by a cabal or who have enough money to buy their way through were promoted.”
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
